What Is A Worldview?

This is a word that I use a lot when talking with my friends and family that I think it’s time to define what I mean when I say this word. There are a couple ways to look at this. First is to say that it is any view that explains the questions of Origins, Meaning, Morality, Destiny, and Identity. These are the five questions that everyone asks at some point in their life and desires to have answers for (even if their answer is “I’ll never find and answer.”).

• Origins-”Where did I come from?”
• Meaning-”Why am I here?”
• Morality-”How should I live?”
• Destiny-”Where am I going?” (More specifically...where do I go after I die?)
• Identity-”Who am I”

This is usually adequate for a beginning discussion on what is your worldview, your worldview touches so many areas of your life that you may not even imagine it does...but this explains the deep rifts and divides that we have between cultures today. When we start with different answers to these questions, then we get vastly different ideas for the following “10 Disciplines of a Worldview” (I’ve copied this list and questions from https://quizlet.com/91131942/10-worldview-disciplines-and-the-central-question-to-each-flash-cards/).

1. Theology-What about God?
2. Philosophy-What is truth and how can we know it?
3. Ethics-What ought/should we do?t.
4. Psychology-What is the nature of man?
5. Sociology-What makes for a healthy society?
6. Law-What is the basis of law?
7. Politics-What is the purpose of government?
8. History-What is the meaning of history?
9. Economics-How should we use our resources?
10. Biology-What is the origin of life?

I’ve attached a picture at the top of the article to hopefully explain some of the interactions here. Let me try and break it down into a few big categories though.

• The center circle will be filled by God, Man, or Nature.
• If it is filled by God then your worldview is “Theistic.” (It may be Monotheistic, Polytheistic. I’ll discuss Pantheistic views separately in a bit.)
• If it is filled by “Nature” then your view is “Naturalistic.” This is also the view of most that say they believe in Science (with a capital S).
• If it is filled with “Man” then your view is “Humanistic.” It may be difficult to separate Humanistic and Naturalistic at first, but those who believe in Humanistic worldviews must believe that there is something special about man that makes him different from everything else in nature and that gives him special rights and privileges. This usually comes in the form of saying man is “the most evolved form of life.”
• Some believe that the entire center of the worldview is filled with God and that there is no such thing as Man or Nature (these are just parts of a divine essence). These views would be labelled as Pantheistic (everything is god). This is the basis for much of the Far Eastern religions and philosophies.
• In a Biblical worldview (which is the picture that I’ve drawn at the top of this article), God is at the center and man and nature are separate entities but both are in important roles subservient to God. Nature declares the glory of God and reveals His “invisible attributes” to us while man who is made in the image of God desires to know God and worship Him.
• All 10 disciplines hang on what someone believes at the core of their worldview, nor should is surprise us that starting with vastly different starting points would get us completely different views on things like Law, Politics, Ethics, Philosophy, Theology, and so on, or that these disparate views are largely incompatible with one another.
• We should realize that when asking someone to change their mind or compromise on one of the 10 “disciplines,” we may actually be asking them to change something fundamental about what they believe and we should expect to be met with some resistance.

That’s a good start for now. I’ll probably go back to and break down each of the major worldviews later in how they answer the 5 fundamental questions and may even break them down as to how they apply those views to the 10 disciplines later. I obviously won’t catch everything in doing so, but hopefully this will help some of you as you desire to have more meaningful conversations with friends and family members.